Norway’s 450-foot-long ‘bike elevator’ is like a ski lift for cyclists

Wikimedia Commons Unless you're a masochist, pretty much no one likes riding a bike uphill.

That's why bicyclists in Trondheim, Norway use a "bike elevator" to move up an incline with ease, almost no leg work required.

At 426 feet long and moving at a top speed of just over 3 miles per hour, the Trampe bicycle lift is the only one of its kind in the world.

The lift first started operating in 1994. Twenty years later, the original design got swapped out for a refurbished and rebranded version, known as CycloCable, which has remained in place ever since.

To ride the lift, riders keep their left leg on the bike and extend their right leg out straight, leaning slightly forward. A metal plate meets their foot and begins pushing the rider uphill.

The Norwegians make it look so simple.

The CycloCable works via a cable system hooked up just below the street's surface. Similar to a ski lift, there are multiple foot plates to accommodate more than one rider at once. Each one is spaced roughly 65 feet apart, so even if someone falls off, there aren't any collisions.

(There is an emergency stop button, however, in case 3 mph is too fast. CycloCable says there have been zero accidents since the lift launched in 1993.)

People have gotten creative with the lift over the years, CycloCable says on its website. In addition to bicyclists, skateboarders use the lift as a welcome break and new parents have relied on the lift to help push baby carriages.

In the future, CycloCable is considering installing lifts in "a number of cities in Europe, USA, Canada and Far East countries like South Korea." Before that can happen, however, cities need to beef up their bike-riding infrastructure, similar to how Scandinavia n countries already have.